


you left me alone

by xNailedIt



Series: This Is Not How it Ends [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben didn't deserve this!, Depression, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Heartbreaking, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Rey didn't deserve this!, Sad Rey (Star Wars), Sad with a Happy Ending, Suicidal Thoughts, at least reylo is endgame, i will fix this, they loved each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-24 17:01:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21861355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xNailedIt/pseuds/xNailedIt
Summary: "you're not alone."POST RISE OF SKYWALKER SPOILERS AHEAD
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: This Is Not How it Ends [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1575160
Comments: 21
Kudos: 213





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I need to write this out so I can heal. Honestly.

Tattoine is nothing and everything like Jakku. 

The desert air, while familiar on her skin, on some days it feels like it's trying to ease its way down her throat and choke her. The sands she's walking on, with every step she wonders if it's quicksand in the very back of her head. The thought doesn't scare her. 

The sky is different. There are twin suns here. It's pretty, but it burns her red-rimmed brown eyes. It's painful to look at, like it's telling her that this planet is made for twos. 

She likes to fool herself sometimes, that BB-8 is all the company she needs. A Droid, Force Ghosts and alien species who avoid her. She knows she has friends in the Resistance, but they're friends who would never understand who she is or what happened in that dreadful, dark place. 

On Jakku, she was a scavenger who wanted her parents back. A scavenger who didn't know she had so much power within her, who didn't know what it was like to love, to have friends, to make sacrifices and lose when everyone else won. She didn't know what's like to kiss lips of a boy in pain. 

On Tattoine, she's the last Jedi and she doesn't want her parents back. She's a Jedi who makes a yellow saber, as if there's any fight to fight left. Here, she feels the weight of the world press on her shoulders, she is everyone's saint who will save the world again if need be. 

On Jakku, she counted the days without her parents. On Tattoine, she counts the days without the other half of her soul. 

She's always longing.

It's times like these when she is meditating, or reaching out with the Force, that it pains her how empty it is. They were a dyad, their life force was connected, they had a bond. And it was sacred. Every time, it's like an open wound that's bleeding and forbidding her any kind of peace. 

It's times like these when she thinks, _you've left me alone._

The hope she had when she saw Leia and Luke's ghosts is gone. The name Skywalker she thought it was right, she only ever felt belonging with his family, but she couldn't help but feel like a fraud. There was a Skywalker. But he's not here. 

_you've left me alone._

Ben was gone, Ben was gone and she would never see him again because he didn't get to be a force ghost, with his life force surging through her. 

Ben is gone and she is not. Why? 

She wished she never loved him as much as she did, but if she didn't, she wouldn't know what's like to look at his loving eyes and touch his grinning mouth as his strong arms held her tight. 

She wouldn't know what's like to have one minute of absolute bliss, to be one with someone you love. 

She didn't know if the price was worth it. 

To be the reason the one person who understood you, accepted you and loved you completely is gone, is crushing what's left of her when she lays awake, unable to sleep anymore. 

Whenever she manages, her dreams are only of him. In some, they rule together like they both imagined. Those are terrifying, because she recognizes that she would rather that than not have him at all. In others, he never falls over and they kiss again instead. They discover galaxies together and continue to see stars in each other's eyes until they explode. 

But in most, she dreams of his face, falling apart and withering away as she tries to hold on to him, pointlessly. 

_you've left me alone._

And it hurts so much more than the darkest nights on Jakku when she felt like nobody cared about her in the universe. She wakes up in tears, in screams and takes out the clothes he left behind. She tries to find his scent and holds them close to her heart while she weeps for love she is sure to never find again. 

Rey thought she was strong, she was strong enough to bear this, but solitude is so much more painful when you've felt the joy of its opposite. 

She remembers what Maz had told her when she met her. _"Whomever you're waiting for... They're never coming back."_

"I know." She says with tired eyes, tear-stained cheeks and a sad smile into the void. 

All her life, she's been waiting for people she needed to come back to her. What is the point? What is she doing here? 

A sob escapes from her mouth and BB-8 beeps worriedly. 

"No, and I don't want to go back to the Resistance." She sniffles and snaps. BB-8 beeps again, apologetically and tells her that they're only worried about her and thinking that perhaps she might feel better with her friends. 

She doesn't reply. After all, the Droid doesn't know who she's mourning. 

Days pass, then months pass. She is not quite sure how long she's been in the torching sunlight of Tattoine, only that she wants it to stop.

She's tried numerous things, met many aliens on this planet but it all feels numb. No matter how many smiles she puts on. Nothing brings her happiness anymore. 

How long? How long until she dies? She didn't ask for this. She didn't ask him to give his life for her. How did he do it so easily? How did he look her in the eyes and decide that his life meant less to him than hers? 

Time. It's a devastating thing. 

She wishes they had time. She wishes they could have ended the war and ran away, anywhere in the galaxy would be heaven with him smiling at her as he had, every day. She regrets not taking more time to memorize his face better before it was taken away from her.

She misses him. She misses the possibilities that were stolen from them. She misses the chance of the Force connecting them at any point during the day, the anticipation for the next time it happened. The black of his hair, the vulnerability of his eyes. The fierce clash of his saber. 

Every breath she takes, she knows it would have been his. Every beat of her weak heart was his own. He gave her this and she should be grateful. 

And she tries so hard to be. But she can't help wanting to not be able to wake up one day. She wants the darkness he went into, this time. She wants relief, because she's been in pain for far too long. 

She knows it's time when a day comes and she can't recall where exactly his scar was. She tells BB-8 to go, the droid was the only reason she made it this far. And she doesn't want her friend to see her in the distress that would follow. 

"I can't do this anymore!"

She screams out, her voice breaking. She isn't a fearless hero, she's just girl, sad, alone and greiving. "Luke?" She calls out, but he doesn't answer. "Really, not even now?" She wipes her tears. "I will not do this anymore. I tried to be what you wanted me to be. I can't do it without him."

"But he is with you."

She turns around and blinks; the figure of Leia's Force Ghost looking at her. Rey falls to her knees, gasping. "You know how I mean it! How can you say that?"

Leia looks stricken. "Rey, I know you will recover from this." 

"Really? You're sure? I might just impale myself on a lightsaber to prove you wrong!" Leia purses her lips, tilting her head. "You were his mother, do you know," She takes a breath. "What it's like to feel like you're half living? To not feel complete? Do you know what it's like to feel like you're cursed to be in pain forever?"

Leia stays silent, her face soft. 

"He did." She continues. "Until he found me. Until I found him." A tear falls into her lips. 

"This is not what he would have wanted." Leia tells her, with sad eyes.

And Rey breaks down, her cries louder than before, sobs shaking her bones, her stomach turning. It is worse than any battle wound, worse anything else in the world.

"I just want to stop feeling so bad. I want it all to be over. Please?"

Leia looked down. "Rey, have you heard of the World Between Worlds?"

Rey furrows her brows, blinking to clear her vision, she replies with a raspy voice. "No?" 

"Luke told me not to tell you this, but considering the state we are in, I'd say it's vital information." She nods once and walks closer to Rey. "Ben isn't with us. But not because he didn't die peacefully," Rey tries to focus on what Leia is saying. "No one has ever done what he did." Leia smiles. 

"The Jedi become Force Ghosts like us when they die with purpose."

Rey looks into the eyes of Luke Skywalker once more. She stands and Leia is startled. 

"Ben did not stay in the dark side, Ben died with purpose, saving you. So why is he not with us?" He was only looking at Rey, with a sour expression. 

Rey swallowed. "Because his life force is in me."

Luke sighs. "Yes, and no. You and Ben were bonded by the Force. You were a dyad. It feels like you're ripped in half, does it not?" 

Rey nods, miserably, trying to make sense of the conversation. "Bonded Force users can't survive without the other. It is so rare for it to happen that I can't be completely sure, but I believe his spirit is weak and trapped in the World between Worlds. I think the proof is that pouring his life force into you, he didn't fade away just then."

Rey feels cold sweat and freezes as she breathes in small amounts. "Is it really possible?" 

Leia continued. "He should be with us; he isn't, because you're a dyad, and he gave you life force to wake your spirit. There's not only him in you. The effort cost his spirit to become weak and he faded away into the world between worlds, but Rey, you're alive because your spirit is awake and regenerated your life force. With the amount of life force inside you...I think," 

"I can bring him back." 

And for the first time since she looked into the smiling eyes of her soulmate, a flower named hope started growing in her heart.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't know much about the world between worlds but ! Thank you for reading, I hope it helps, you're wonderful and we can make it through this together

And it was not easy. 

But she found the gate. The portal. Luke didn't want her to do this, but she would have drifted away if she didn't. She just hoped she would be able to find him. Nothing else matters.

There was nothing in this world or the next that would stop her from getting him back. 

It's been three years since the final battle. Rey gathers what's left of her strength and steps into the painting. 

The World Between Worlds was a ghastly place. Exegol was full of darkness but this was full of quiet, eeriness and cold.

She wasn't sure about the gravity inside this place, but her feet remained on the seemingly transparent road ahead of her. 

She had her yellow lightsaber strapped to her waist, her senses open to her surroundings. The silence was deafening. The world seemed to go on forever. 

This was it. She closed her eyes. 

_Ben, I'm here._

She looked around with hopeful, curious eyes. 

The roads made crosses and stretched on. Some had triangles, ovals doors and lights made patterns over the endless ceiling and floor. Concentrating on the Force, she tried to call out for guidance, for him.

There are whispers. Hushes picking at her skin. 

_"Compassion."_

She didn't recognize the voice, but she knew it was someone who helped her before. A Jedi. 

She kept walking, hoping the trail would lead where she needed to be. Hoping that he would be at the end of this. 

_"I know my son is gone."_

Rey looked to her right, an empty door smelling of angry misery. She instinctively raised an arm and placed it over herself, chest heaving. This could not be where Ben was, not after what he did. 

She kept walking, hurrying her steps as more voices spoke, the sense of the words inaudible. 

_"The belonging you seek,"_

She looked around. She knew that voice, these words were spoken to her. But she could not understand why she was hearing all of this, or how. 

The roads were endless, how did she know she was on the right one? There were roads under hers and over her head. 

She looked behind her. 

The door she went through was not visible. How long had she been walking on this route? Perhaps there's no such thing as time or space in here. She didn't think about how she was going to find her way out. She thought of Ben.

_"No one's ever really gone."_

She closed her eyes, breathed evenly and looked for spiritual energy. She was focused, she could not afford to be distracted or have her control slip when she needed it the most. She would not leave this place until she found him. 

She could feel a sting, from something pulsing with a sense of fulfillment, exhaustion coming off in waves. She held on to that, tried to follow it with her mind, trying to find it as if it was the corners of her head. 

Her arm was raised, she hadn't noticed she'd done that until she heard, _"It is ahead."_

Rey dared open her eyes and was looking into a mirror. At least she thought it was one. 

She looked closer and she could see a light silhouette through it. Rey gasped, widened her eyes and put her hands on the surface of the mirror, only to find instead of glass, a sticky mass pulling her in. 

She pulled out, with much force, she stumbled backwards and watched the image in front of her. 

The silhouette seemed incomplete, only parts of his body loosely defined. Like a visual image of how she was feeling all this time, because they were apart. His spirit. It was so vulnerable. But it was him. She found him. 

She couldn't help the wrecked smile that shook her lips. 

"Ben! Can you hear me?" The silhouette moved but she didn't think he heard her. She took a second to look at the surroundings he was in, but she couldn't see anything but black, black nothing. 

"Come back to me." She said, pushing back despair. "I don't know if you can hear me but I'm going to get you out of there." 

Her hand hovered over the surface of the image. 

Life force. 

She tried to picture her hand casting a glowing halo over all of him, to bask him in it and give him life. She could feel the immense amounts of living energy inside her, and Luke and Leia were right, she had enough for two people, if that other person was a Force user.

She could feel the Bond, like a powerless trembling leaf against the storm that was itching to snap off. She pictured it trying to become the storm's master. 

She didn't know if she'd been trying to connect with her life force for hours, minutes, or days. There was a pang that made her stop, sensing her weakness, her body unable to handle more of the process. 

Her serene breaths became fast again, she felt dizzy, stumbling until she was sitting on the floor and she looked straight ahead to see if she did it, when she managed to raise her head.

Ben was there, curled into a ball, naked and looking alive and worried sick. 

She crawled closer, eyes locked on his with her breath caught in her throat. It was surreal, it was another dream. There's no way it was real, Ben is gone, he is never coming back-

He raised his arm against the surface of the portal, she raised hers. In the mass she could feel the skin of his palm, warm and familiar. She teared up and looked at him desperately. 

The need to feel all of him was so blinding. She pulled, she tried to fight against the fluid wall and take him with her. Groaning out in her effort, she fell backwards. 

She instantly rose, keeping her hungry gaze at him, only to find him looking drained and his lids closing. "Give him back!" She bit out to no one in particular, maybe fate, maybe karma. "Give him back now! Haven't you taken enough from me?!" 

Her words did not echo in the hollow space of emptiness. She braced herself for the pull that would envelop her when she puts her arms through the wall towards him. She had to keep steady, be quick and make it out. 

It took all her might, grasping Ben with both her arms, trying break through the barrier, she even called on the Force, using it to drag him to her. 

She groaned from the exhaustion of fighting against the pull inside, her head almost going in. No, she was the last Jedi, she could make it. 

Gosh, he was heavy. 

She flew backwards again, but this time there was a body dragged along with hers. His body. Ben. _Her_ Ben. 

Rey was dazed, her lids heavy to lift, but she knew she had to find a way out of there. The struggle to stay conscious bit at the blackness in her eyes. 

"Ben, we," Chest heaving, "have to get," A cough. "Out."

She couldn't see him, but she could feel his arms clinging to her. She thought she heard him say something, but she couldn't make sense of the sounds. A ring in her ears. 

_"Which I would define as unconditional love."_

Eventually, innocent sleep won. 

* * *

The first thing Rey saw when she woke up was the wall beside her bed. A moment's breath passed and she sat upright suddenly. 

Fear started filling her veins, made her breaths hammer and bounce on her ribcage. She was frantic, her thoughts catching up to her. _It was a dream?_

She gritted her teeth against the coming hurricane of tears and stood. No, there was no way it was a dream. But she was still inside her ship, as if she'd never left to go to another world at all. And she had no recollection of making it here.

She wanted to scream his name and look for him, _no, it can't have been_ but only a faint whisper left her mouth and she was frozen on the spot. 

Rustling reached her ears and she convinced herself to move and look at the door. A shiver ran down her arms, her jaw shaking. 

It was a broad man, in simple clothes that barely fit him, boots on his feet and a bag over his left shoulder. His movements were hurried when he opened the door, so his long dark hair was tousled.

Rey stood there, gaping at him, oxygen troubled. When his eyes spotted her, he blinked; his own eyes wide in bewilderment. None seemed to know how to react, equal longing in their hearts keeping them dead in their tracks. 

_please, don't be a dream._

She took a step forward, her lips wanted to form a smile but the urge to cry pushed them back in their place. The man let the bag on the floor, his eyes never leaving hers but Rey's eyes travelled all over his body and then restarted their way. 

An arm shot up out of its own volition, she couldn't help it. Her fingers touched the material on his chest, gasped lightly when she felt the texture. The man had a small smile she had seen before. 

It was the smile he wore with blurred eyes, the smile she looked into and decided to drown in. 

Her hand grazed his cheek and a deep breath left her body, taking away the fear, the worry, the horrors. Rey didn't realize the tears were there until they fell, Ben leaning into her palm and resting his forehead on hers. 

Her hand caressed his cheek, as one of his own hands came to rest on her neck- _just like before._

Ben could not deny the knot in his own throat, the joy that touching her living form once more brought to him. He said her name like the most gentle melody of a passing hummingbird. "Rey..."

She brought her other hand on his cheek and she let a cry irritate the silence. "I," she didn't know where to start. There were so many things she wanted to say him, that she never got the chance to before.

"I was scared when I saw you on the floor." He mumbled softly. "Like it was the same nightmare again." He admitted. Rey looked into his soft and vulnerable eyes, she had missed those haunting eyes so much. 

"I didn't want to leave the ship but I had to.. find clothes.." He muttered shyly, his ears red. It was adorable and it annoyed Rey greatly. 

She pulled away. Ben was startled, wide eyes searching her face. She was frustrated, her brows furrowed on the bridge of her nose. "You left me alone." Ben was at a loss for words. "You left me alone!" She shouted, her words referring to much more than the current situation. "How could you? How-"

Arms forcefully enveloped her, full of warmth, she was whole-and it was so warm- it's been so long- "You're not alone. I'm sorry." He swallowed, patient, as she stopped fighting against his hold. Her grip found his shirt and clutched it, burying her head in his chest, as she cried out and mourned one last time for him and her. It seemed like all the absence, the devastation she felt all this time was getting carved out of her. "I'm sorry."

Every ugly piece that was stuck on her soul started being peeled off and she could breathe and she was free. Here, in his arms, his hands in her hair, limitless.

She pulled her head back. "I missed you so much." She smiled a pained smile, full of the struggles of the past and the happiness of the present. 

Was there ever a more beautiful sight than his glittering dark orbs and sweet dimples, only ever on show for her? 

She couldn't take it. His cheeks, his temples, his eyes, she kissed it all. His giggles the most wonderful thing she heard and she wanted to hear it over and over again. 

With their noses touching, hands holding each other's faces, Ben said one thing she would want to hear even more. "I love you."

It was natural, the perfect note to their harmonious existence. She dove for his lips as soon as the last vowel echoed, fingers finding themselves in his soft hair. She chased the feeling, never stopping, she would never stop wanting this sense of belonging that only he could ever offer. 

The other part of her soul was holding her incredibly tight, as if he needed to meld her body to his. She found that she could sense his own euphoric emotions, mirroring her own. 

He was home. And this time he would stay. 

"I love you." Her grin is wide and glorious and it matches his and Ben doesn't know how he's so lucky, can't believe that finally he has the love he always dreamed of. He pulls her close again and hugs her small yet strong body and he's overwhelmed by the fact that they still found their way to each other, after everything. 

So they don't say any more, they don't need to. For now, they will breathe together and enjoy the symphony of their beating hearts. Later, they will kiss under moons, they will dance in the sunlight, they will wake up to the heaven of each other and find masterpieces in the chaos that they are. 

And one day, they will both fade into the Force, and be together till the end of time, watching over as a new generation rises. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay!!  
> I'm gonna write more post canon!  
> hope u stay for the rest I love u all


End file.
